April Shadows (24 page)

The only thing out of the ordinary was a light blue hoop with feathers, beads, and what looked like arrowheads hanging above his bed.
"What is that?" I asked.
"It's a dream catcher."
"Excuse me?"
"A dream catcher. We believe that the night air is filled with dreams both good and bad. The dream catcher hung over or near your bed, swinging freely in the air, catches the dreams as they flow by. The good dreams know how to pass through the dream catcher, slipping through the outer holes and sliding down the soft feathers so gently that many times the sleeper does not know that he or she is dreaming. The bad dreams, not knowing the way, get tangled in the dream catcher and perish with the first light of the new day."
"Boy, could I use one of those," I said.
He smiled, went to the closet, opened it, and took one that looked similar off the inside of the door.
"This will be yours," he said.
"Really? It's beautiful,"
"Really," he said, and handed it to me.
"I have nothing to give you in return," I said.
"You have given your friendship. Go on, take it," he urged, and I did. "Okay, let's go to the board," he said.
He began to rearrange the pieces to set up a new game. "I didn't mean for you to ruin your game."
"No problem. I have it all memorized."
"You do?"
"It's like a fine painting. You don't forget it so easily,' he explained. "Sit," he said, pointing to the seat across from him.
I sat quickly. He folded his hands and leaned over the board.
"Let's get more into it now. You know the board, the way the pieces move, the object of the game, some of the rules. The pawn. as I began to explain, moves in a most unusual way. This is one of the trickiest moves to learn and usually drives my students nuts. We call it capturing
en passant
. which is French for--"
"'While passing',"
I
said.
He nodded, showing he was impressed. "You know French?"
"I'm in second year. I took it as an elective."
"
Tres bien,"
he said. "Okay. Here's the story about this move. During the early days of chess, pawns could only move a single square at a time. Some changes were created in Europe to speed up the game. One of these. as I explained, was that the pawn can move two squares if it has not yet moved. Now. I didn't explain that when a pawn moves all the way down to the last rank on the board, it becomes another piece."
"What do you mean, another piece?"
"It gets promoted, only you can't promote it to a king. A queen, yes, but not a king. Most of the time, it's a queen, so it's possible to have many queens on the board. And don't say something dumb like too many chiefs and not enough Indians."
"I wasn't going to," I said, laughing. He laughed, too.
"Getting back to the
en passant
. It became possible for a pawn to move all the way down the board without the opponent's pawn ever having a chance to capture it. Here's how the
en passant
rule applies. For one move, and one move only, the black pawn can respond by capturing the white pawn as if it had moved only a single square. To effect the capture, the pawn is moved forward diagonally."
He demonstrated with the white and black pawn.
"Only pawns can capture
en passant
, and only a pawn on an adjacent file or row, can capture in this manner. Understand?"
"I think so," I said.
It's a hard one. I know, Just watch as I move the pieces and do it again."
I watched him play against himself. As he moved pieces, he announced what he was doing.
"See?"
"Yes." I said. It was still a little cloudy, but I didn't want him to get discouraged about teaching me. "Who taught you how to play chess?'"
"My father."
"Your father? But I thought you said..."
"It was practically the only thing we did together. He could drink and still play well. After a time. I began to anticipate his moves, and he got so he started to forget. I stopped playing with him then."
"Oh. I'm sorry."
"There's nothing to be sorry about. It was what was and no longer is. My grandfather used to say that if you dwell on the past, it will capture you, imprison you. Go outside and bury the unhappiness. I remember once I hurt myself, tripped and slid and scraped my palms raw.
I
cried until I ran out of tears. Then I sulked until my grandfather took me out back and dug a hole, 'Go on.' he said. Throw your unhappiness into the hole.' I had no idea what to throw, but I made a gesture that meant it, and he said. 'Good.' and filled the hole. 'Now you will forget the pain.' he promised. and I did."
I smiled skeptically,
"Try it sometime," he told me. "Okay, let's return to the king."
"Actually, my sister thinks like you do. She says you can't dwell on the game before, no matter if you won or lost. You have to look to the next game. She's very strong that way."
He nodded.
"She's playing in the all-star game Friday."
"You told me that." he said
"It's sure to be an exciting game. Would you like to go?" I asked quickly. "We'd be going with my sister's roommate."
He stared a moment. I held my breath.
"I've never gone to a girls' basketball game."
"They don't play like girls. You'd be surprised how exciting it gets, and when you see my sister play..."
He started to laugh. "Okay," he said when my face began to sink into itself. I imagined I sounded like a little fool. "I will go, but I buy my own ticket."
"My sister gets six free ones.. I'm sure there will be one for vou."
"If there isn't, you tell me," he said.
"Understood?"
"Yes, of course."
"Now we'll look at something called castling," he said. "The king is permitted to take part in a very special move, the only chess move that actually involves two pieces at the same time. To castle..."
"Move the king two squares toward the rook and then move the rook to the square immediately on the other side of the king," I recited.
He looked up with surprise, and I smiled at him.
"You did do some studying," he said, impressed again.
Mama used to say she won Daddy's heart through his stomach because of her cooking. Here I was hopefully winning Peter's heart through chess.
"When can't you castle?" he asked. He sat back, folding his arms across his chest.
"When?" I panicked.
I
had absolutely no idea. I had only memorized the term to impress him. I shook my head.
"Why do it. anyway? When does it make strategic sense?" Again. I shook my head.
"Go too far out in a stream before you learn completely how to swim, and you'll get washed away with the current,'" he warned. Then he smiled. "It's all right. If you knew all that, I wouldn't be able to be your teacher today."
My smile returned. He rose and went to his CD player to turn on some music. It was very different but very interesting.
"What is that?"
"Cherokee music. Indian flute." he said. "Do you like it?"
"Yeah, much."
"Good. Back to castling," he said. "now that I'm with an expert."
We went on for almost another hour before I realized how late it had gotten and practically leaped out of my seat.
"I've got to get home." I said, recalling how Brenda and Celia had given me the third degree the day before.
"I'm sorry,
I
let carried away myself." he said, rising. "Especially if I'm working with someone who is genuinely interested and listening,"
I smiled, even though in my heart of hearts, I knew I was here not because of chess but because of him. If he had any such suspicion, he didn't reveal it.
"Don't forget your dream catcher,'" he said, holding it out. He walked me to the door and out to the car.
"Now, are you telling me the truth this time?" he asked. and I blanched. Did he see through me and know that I was less interested in chess than I was in him?
"What do you mean?"
"Do you really know the way home?"
"Oh," I said, relieved at what he was asking. I showed him a paper on which I had written the directions I had gotten yesterday.
"Okay," he said, holding the door.
I stood there looking at him. In a burst of courage, I stepped up on my toes and gave him a peck on the cheek.
"Thank you," I said quickly, and got into the car. I was afraid to look up at him.
He wore a look of amusement when he closed the door. I started the engine, put it in reverse, and looked at him to wave good-bye, but he had already turned to go back into his house.
I'd made a dumb fool of myself. I thought. My eyes were so full of tears by the time I reached the corner of his street that I thought
I
would have trouble driving. I sucked in my breath, bit down on my lip, and tried to shake the feeling of stupidity and embarrassment off, but it was with me all the way home.

Brenda wasn't home when I arrived. Celia came out of their room as soon as I entered to tell me Brenda had gone with her teammates to practice and would have a light dinner with them afterward.

"You're pretty late," she said. "Peter Smoke again?"
"Yes. He taught me more about chess."
"Only chess?" she asked, swinging her eyes. "Only chess," I repeated sternly.
"What is that?" she asked, seeing the dream catcher.
"Something Peter gave me. It's called a dream catcher. You hang it over your bed, and it keeps nightmares away."
"If only it worked," she said.
"Maybe it does," I told her. "Maybe you just have to believe in it. Maybe the trouble is you don't believe in anything." I added sharply.
She laughed after me as I charged through the house toward the rear door. "What do you want to do for dinner?" she called.
I paused. "You go where you want," I said. "I'm just making a couple of eggs for myself."
I closed the door before she could respond and hurried across the small yard to my apartment. The first thing I did was hang the dream catcher above my pull-out sofa bed. I had just finished when I heard Celia knocking at the door.
"What?"
"Can I come in?" she asked.
"Come in." I said, and plopped on the sofa. I folded my arms across my breasts and glared ahead.
She stood in the doorway, looking at me. "What's wrong. April?"
"Nothing."
"Look, I'm sorry.
I
didn't mean to make fun of the dream catcher. I actually know what they are and have a great deal of respect for Indian spiritualism. I took a course in comparative religions and was amazed at the similarities between Native American religion and Far Eastern religion."
"That's nice.," I said.
"Something else is bothering you besides my flippant remarks." I didn't answer. She stood there, holding the door open.
"I know how it is when you have no one to talk to I had no one for most of my life. It's all right. I want to help you," she said.
"Yeah. right." I said.
She came in, closing the door behind her.
"You don't have your mother anymore. and Brenda was never the sort of sister who had the patience for your problems. I'm sure, she said, which surprised me. "It's all right. I'm not telling stories out of school. Brenda would be the first to admit it. Am I wrong?"
"No," I said, knowing well that Brenda would never pretend to be one thing when she was another. Often. I wished she would.
"It's terrible to be alone with your feelings, especially when they're coming at you fast and furious, and they're so new and even frightening," Celia said.
She sat beside me on the sofa. I glanced at her and looked away. She was right about that, too, of course. What could I say?
"You really like this boy?"
I hesitated for a moment, and then I relaxed my shoulders. "I think so," I said.
"It's confusing, I know."
"I might have made a big fool of myself." I confessed. "Oh? How?"
"When we said good-bye. I just... just kissed him on the cheek quickly and jumped into the car. I probably looked like a real idiot."
"I'm surprised. Usually, it's the boy who looks like a real idiot." she muttered. "What did he do?"
"Nothing. He just turned away and walked back to his frontdoor."
"Maybe he's very shy. There are still a few of them around," she said.
I turned and looked at her. ''Do you really hate men that much?"
"Hate? No. I'm just, shall we say, a little cynical. I had a number of experiences when I wasn't much older than you are, and none of them left me satisfied. Most were quite upsetting, matter of fact."
"Is that why you like to be with a woman?"
"No. I wouldn't say it was only because of those experiences. It's not easy to explain what makes you feel this way or that. There's something inside me that takes me in that direction. And I'm comfortable with it," she added quickly.
"When did you first know about yourself?" I asked, feeling bolder. She was the one who had come into my apartment to talk to me, after all.
"I didn't."
"What do you mean?"
"I didn't first know about myself. Someone else did and showed me," she said.
"How did she know about you before you knew about yourself?"
"Sometimes, people can see you better than you can see yourself. You're not objective, and you have a number of issues that prevent you from facing up to the truth. I dated plenty in high school. I cared about my appearance. I was quite attractive."
"You're still quite attractive," I said with an underlying bitter tone. I couldn't help feeling her goad looks were wasted on her.
"I developed a reputation for being frigid. It wasn't something I could help. I didn't enjoy necking and petting and going farther. I wasn't comfortable. The boys in school began to call me the 'No Girl.' They wrote it on my locker, made up jokes about me. One day, they even pasted a large 'NO' on my back in the morning without me noticing, and I was the laughingstock of the school without realizing why for quite a while.'
"How horrible." I said. I couldn't help being impressed with her revelations. Here she had been presenting herself as Miss Perfect, brilliant, attractive, and stable even after a very sad home life.
"This other Girl at the school. Donna Cameron, befriended me while my so-called best friends began to distance themselves from me. After all. I wasn't being invited to the same parties anymore or going on double dates.
"Talk about your man haters," she continued. "Donna would have castrated the entire male population if she could. She had been the object of ridicule most of her life and had developed a very hard crust. But she was very sympathetic to me and always willing to keep me company. Our friendship grew. We talked a great deal on the phone, shared homework, went to movies together. We never really talked about sex or how I was being treated. It was almost like a grade-school friendship, you know. Boys were still in the distance or considered competition.
"She told me about her own failed romances when she was younger, and one thing led to another. I began revealing more about my experiences, and then one night, when she slept over, we, she..."
"What?" I asked, unable to keep my curiosity under control.
"She touched me, and it excited me, and then she touched me again, and then we kissed, and then it just happened. Neither of us talked about it afterward. We began sleeping at each other's homes more often, and for the first time in my life. I felt complete, uncomplicated, at ease. I slowly sank into my true self, and I guess I have Donna to thank."
"What happened to her?"
"I don't know. After high school, we kept in touch for a short while. Then she joined the army, and we drifted apart. I'm sure she found someone else, and that was fine. I wouldn't have wanted to have with her what I have with Brenda."
She was quiet, just staring at the floor.
"Peter is the first boy I have ever really thought about like that."
I said. "Do you think that means anything?" I asked. "I mean, because it took me so long to have these feelings?"
She shrugged. "If I've learned anything, April, it's that questions like that are not to be answered flippantly. Anyone who gives you an answer is just parroting some child psychology textbook."
She patted me on the knee and stood up.
"Let things just happen. What's meant to be will be." she said. "Are you sure you just want two eggs for dinner? There's this interesting new Thai restaurant I've discovered, and those dishes are very low in calories and fat if you order correctly. They're very tasty. too. You don't have to suffer on a diet, despite what Brenda says about no pain, no gain."
"Okay," I said. smiling.
After she had been so forthcoming with me. I felt foolish being petulant. Considering all that occupied Brenda's mind these days, I realized I was lucky to have Celia.
"Good. I hate eating alone, and when your sister is involved in an event like this all-star game, she is horrible company. I might as well be sitting with a mannequin at dinner-- or anywhere, for that matter. If
I
hear how stupid this coach's strategy is or how obvious his plays are one more time. I'll go down to the gymnasium and kill him myself," she said.
I laughed.
"Come in when you're ready, and we'll go to dinner," she said at the door.
"I asked Peter to join us at the game," I told her. "Oh?"
"Brenda still has extra tickets, doesn't she?"
"Far as I know, she does. You'll have to check with her and make sure she didn't give any to her old teammates. He's going, then?"
"Unless he thinks I'm an idiot and he doesn't want to have anything to do with me."
She shrugged, "If he does, he does, and that's that." she said. She peered hard at me. "You move on. April. You don't dwell on failures and regrets."
"Everyone says that in one way or another." I replied, thinking about the advice Peter's grandfather had given him.
"Then it must be true," Celia told me, and left.
I chose something to wear, washed my face, and brushed my hair so it looked like something, and then hurried across the
yard to meet her and go to dinner. At dinner, she talked more about her own youth, some of the funnier things that had happened to her, the friends she had in college before Brenda, and her ambitions.
The wall that I had been building between myself and Celia began to crumble. It was horrible to think it, but in some ways. I was beginning to appreciate her more than my own sister. She appeared to notice it as well and told me she wished I would think of her as her new sister.
"We've got to remember that we only have each other now. It's you, me. and Brenda against the rest of the world, and you know what?"
"What?"
"We're going to do just fine. All of us." she said.
She reached across the table to squeeze my hand gently and smiled.
Brenda was in a small rage when she returned home after her practice. She said the coach had her boxed in with his stupid plays. He was favoring a girl from his own team. Charlotte Johnson.
"She's good, but she's not as good as I am," Brenda declared. "In just about every play he's designed, she finishes with the
shot. I'm sorry I agreed to play in this game." "I'm sure you'll do fine." Celia said.
"Aren't you listening to me? I hate playing under this man," she snapped back at Celia.
"She's only trying to make you feel better about it. Brenda," I said.
Brenda raised her eyebrows. "Oh,' she said. "Thank you. Dr. Taylor."' She looked at Celia. "You're beginning to rub off on people," she told her, and went into the bedroom.
"Don't worry about it," Celia said. "She'll calm down. She often goes through these sorts of tantrums right before the big game. It's pressure. Afterward, she'll hate herself for the way she was. I'll go talk to her," she said. rising.
"Don't forget about the tickets." I called.
After a few more minutes of television, which was really like a light bulb with moving shadows to me at the moment. I rose, too, and went to my apartment.
Brenda was calmer in the morning. Celia had asked her about the tickets, and she told me she had one for Peter.
"Let me know today for sure," she said. "Otherwise, I want to give it to Paula Grassman, one of my teammates."
"Okay," I said.
I looked for Peter during the school day and understood why it was always hard to find him between classes. He rushed out of his and was the first to enter the next class all the time. Other students lingered in the hallways, talking and socializing until the bell rang, and then rushed to their rooms before the late bell sounded thirty seconds later. He was on a different corridor most of the day. so I couldn't get into the hallway fast enough to catch him.
Lunchtime, however, I found him at his tree. I said. He glanced at me.
"Hi," he replied, turning his attention back to the sky. "I didn't have any nightmares last night," I told him. He looked at me to see if I was being serious,
"Of course. I didn't have any the night before. either," I added, and he laughed.
"Then we'll have to wait to see if it works for you or not." he said.
I sat beside him and opened my brown bag. "Same lunch?"
"It's no secret I'm trying to lose weight," I told him. "I've been trying to do that for a long time. Every time I lose a few, I gain them back,"
"You need to follow the medicine wheel," he said. What's that?"
"Everyone has four aspects to his nature. North is the physical realm: East is what we call the realm of knowledge, enlightenment: South is the spiritual realm: and West is the realm of introspective thought. When you walk the steps of your recovery, you choose a starting point and continue in a sunrise direction back to your origin. A circle has no true beginning or ending, so when you have traveled through the wheel back to where you started, you begin again, but with new understanding. It's something you do all your life.'
"I don't understand how it works," I said.
He turned and drew a circle in the sand where I had drawn the chess board.
"The North is a place of beginning because it is a place of rebirth. You make a decision here to stop abusing your body.
First, you have to recognize that you are damaging yourself. You can't do this until you see the connection between your physical and emotional self. You abuse yourself because you are angry inside. Attack this anger."
I nodded. "Yes. I am angry inside. How do I stop it?'
"Go to the East, the morning direction. Tell yourself you are worthwhile, that you have been given a sacred gift, life, and you have a right to be you. You need to find a balance between yourself and others, a harmony. Once you are aware of ghat is causing you to abuse yourself and others, you can begin' to stop it.
"Look to the South," he said, nodding at the sky. "Recognize that there is a power greater than us. Turn to it for help. You must connect inside with yourself, with the most private part of you, and admit to your fears, your desires and emotions. This way, you will care for your own spirit.
"When you look to the West, you will see that the path to recovery, to your solving your problems, comes when you admit to yourself that no one can change you but you. In the end, you're responsible for yourself."
"Have you done this, traveled the wheel?"
"Yes. and I'm traveling it now," he said. He unbuttoned his shirt and showed me a medallion he wore around his neck.
My grandfather gave me this." he said. "This is a traditional medicine wheel." He turned it over. "On the back is a prayer to the Great Spirit."
I didn't understand it, of course. "What is the prayer?"
"This is a four-wind medallion. It says, 'Whose voice I hear in the wind.'"
"I wondered how you dealt with all your problems," I said. He closed his shirt.
"Oh? So, how have I done it?" he asked.
"By being comfortable with who you are." I said, and he smiled.